


Coping

by Arrowdite



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Violence, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Extended Scene, Gen, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Murder, Not a ship fic, Platonic Relationships, Swearing, Team as Family, takes place during episode 1x07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 16:19:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16747378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arrowdite/pseuds/Arrowdite
Summary: Rachel decides there's only one way they're getting out of here: alive. But alive and okay are two completely different things.Character study of Rachel Roth as she finds and frees each of her friends held hostage by The Organization. Takes place during Episode 1x07, Asylum.Rating for swearing, violence.





	Coping

**Author's Note:**

> I live for stolen moments. Also a fan of characters unpacking significant shared experiences which happens on screen typically less than I'd like. 
> 
> And I really appreciate comments!!

Rachel finds Gar in the worst state possible. 

Not because of the cage – the hilariously cliché attempt to bait his most unnatural instincts – but because marrow-deep exhaustion rolls off him in waves. In each audible pant she hears the struggle to keep his stamina from dipping below zero, the echoing jitter of his every muscle and tendon, the ache of sores across his back and chest. And still, he’s present, alert, here.

“Is that – ?”

“Yeah.” Rachel finds Gar's clothes and offers them up.

A disbelieving, relieved giggle, of all things. Then, _“Awesome.”_

__

__

This, despite everything, is proof he’s okay. He may not know how to cope without humor, but the sharp exhale of a laugh is proof he’s coping at all. She takes that as solid footing by which to move forward. The rest can be uncertain so long as this isn’t.

Then one of The Organization’s lab goons points a stun stick at her, and Gar tears him apart with a roar and claws and a ferocity that almost surpasses Kory’s. Rachel doesn’t know why he drags the goon into the cage. Because now Gar’s back in the cage too. An awful, guttural scream resounds through the room. Rachel realizes there’s nothing funny in the irony of The Organization finally getting what they wanted from Gar. There’s nothing funny in the irony of Gar’s metaphor from the other night, either – the one about his powers feeling like electricity.

As Rachel stares, Angela flinches beside her. She can sense her fear through her hold on Angela’s wrist. But for the first time since she can remember, Rachel isn’t scared. Not for herself.

She remembers what Dick told her. _“Sometimes there just isn’t time to be scared.”_ And she isn’t scared. She’s terrified.

She just killed a man and she can’t decide if it was done by her or by her demonic reflection. Whether her abilities actualized her darkest impulses, or she surrendered herself to her demon knowing the choice it would make, or if her demon finally convinced her it was what she wanted. She’s been fighting the urge to kill since her reflection first spoke. She didn't even know she _could_ kill someone the way she had. What other horrible things is she capable of? Her reflection isn’t her, she can’t allow it to be, but in that moment...

It doesn’t matter. There isn’t time to think on it. Minutes ago Rachel found a woman who both confirmed and dismissed her worst fears about the person she hoped her mother was, and she can’t decide if she’s relieved or disappointed. She can fucking drown in the guilt of just that. But there isn’t time. She has to focus.

She has no idea where Kory and Dick are, but they’re in danger. Suffering. They’re here because of her. Worse, they may not make it out even if she manages to find them. There isn’t time for that either, she decides. She _will_ find them. She _will_ get them out. Angela, too.

But she watches Gar, the closest person she has to a friend, rip apart a man and cough out chunks of his flesh. And no, he isn’t okay. She approaches him, slowly, because she has to tell him somehow she’s still not afraid of him. Because the feeling of rot that kind of inner darkness leaves behind is one she knows too well.

Somehow, tears in his eyes, he manages to look at her, if only for a second.

“I – I bit him.”

His heart is broken. The boy who sees nothing evil about her, who has only used his powers to protect her, who jokingly said _she’d_ protect _him_ , is broken. He’s staring at the body. There’s blood running down his chin – he can’t be okay. Which is why she doesn’t bother asking. There’s nothing she can say to console him. But she can’t let helplessness get the better of her. She has to give him something to focus on so he doesn’t get stuck.

Rachel was wrong. _This_ is the worst state possible to find him in.

“We have to get Dick and Kory.”

It’s a distraction, a necessary one, and it seems to work; Gar nods as if in part to shake himself out of his shock. If they collectively survive this nightmare, they can make time to be stuck. She’ll be there for him then. For now she has to be here with him, where he is, as much as he’s mortified beyond comprehension. As painful as the reality of what that means is.

None of them are okay, and there isn’t time to not be.

Rachel has to focus on what she knows.

“Angela,” she asks over her shoulder, “can you find something for him to wipe his mouth?”

Angela jumps, like out of a haze, and nods. She searches the nearby table as Rachel finds Gar’s clothes again.

“Th – there’s only tools and stuff here,” Angela says. Rachel nods to herself and passes Angela Gar’s sweatshirt, then Gar his pants. He looks like he’s about to break down and sob.

“Give me your hand,” Rachel instructs. At a loss, Gar obeys. Rachel makes the conscious choice not to acknowledge the way he’s trembling in his skin. Instead, she wraps her fingers tighter around his arm and lets him leverage his weight against hers. He manages to hold his clothes against himself as together they pull him through the cage door.

“Can you put your pants on? I’m going in there to get the lab coat,” Rachel says, nodding at the cage.

Gar looks right at Rachel and something in him steels. He takes a shaky breath through his nose and lets go of her arm. 

“Yeah.” His voice sounds surer, reminiscent of the moment he decided to disobey Dr. Caulder on Rachel’s behalf. Another thing Rachel decides to address once all this is over.

Angela comes over to help Gar steady himself, and Rachel peels the lab coat off the body. A gross urge to puke pushes at the back of her throat, and it's all she can do to swallow it. She turns the coat inside out so Gar doesn’t have to revisit the sight of the blood, hoping it’ll be enough, wondering passively if he really does have as keen a sense of smell as he implied on the ride over. She climbs out of the cage and hands it to Angela, who passes it to a now pants-wearing Gar.

Gar vigorously scrubs the coat against his face, his neck. When he pulls it away to wipe his hands, he stares at the shock of red on white like he heard it speak.

“Gar,” Rachel insists, voice hard, _there’s no time._ Gar’s eyes snap to hers, wide, distant. “Don’t.”

Gar drops the coat on cue. Angela hands him his sweatshirt; he wastes no time pulling it over his shoulders. He twists to look under, around, over, inspecting it quickly.

“No blood,” he murmurs. It’s not a joke, but he says it like in another life he would have made it one. 

Rachel manages a solemn smile. “It’s your favorite jacket. Come on, we have to go."

Gar nods. Angela nods. They leave that room and don’t look back.

\---

Finding Kory is nothing short of panic-inducing.

Kory is so powerful, so competent, so in control of herself and her situation despite knowing so little about either. To see her helplessly strapped to a table with a tube shoved down her throat captures how fucked they really are if they don’t make it out of here. 

_We will,_ Rachel reminds herself.

Dick does what he does best – leaps into action – and Gar rushes to Kory’s table, familiar with the straps holding her down thanks to his time at Dr. Caulder’s mansion. Rachel isn't sure how she can help, but she has to make sure Kory is okay.

She’s not, of course, but she’s alive.

Dick calls Kory’s name and the gagging noise Kory makes is deafening in Rachel’s ears. The blaring alarm is mere background noise. She resists another urge to get sick.

Even with Gar’s reassurance he knows what to do, Kory’s eyes blaze with fear, and Rachel can’t believe there are people in this world capable of doing this to her. Of rendering her this powerless.

Kory has been Rachel’s protector and ally since they met. She saved her from the Nuclear Family without knowing who she is, knowing just that she’d do better with Kory instead. She took care of her after Dawn and Hank couldn’t and Dick wouldn’t. She cares about Rachel. Rachel knows from the little moments they've shared: like when Kory handed her chicken and waffles in the car. Or when she took her side, no questions asked, when Dick made his surprise appearance at the roller rink. She would have taken out Dr. Adamson if Rachel had asked with just her eyes. She's only ever tried to help. Kory is the reason Rachel has any leads on her mother to begin with.

Kory followed her here at all to help her. The least Rachel can do is be here for her as best she can.

Rachel is used to needing Kory. But now, Kory needs Rachel, and in a way that has nothing to do with her search for who she is. So Rachel does the only thing she can think to do, the same thing she did for Gar: distract.

“Hey, look at me." 

And Kory does. She locks a hunter's gaze on Rachel til Gar finally yanks the appallingly long tube out of Kory’s throat. She breathes deeply and sits up too quickly. The way she snaps at Gar after the fact reassures Rachel she isn’t gone, isn’t broken the way she was scared Dick was, the way she suspects Gar on might be. Out of the four of them, Kory comes the most alive. She’s the only one whose strength is enough to not only carry herself, but for all of them to lean on. She’s their rock. She has to be okay.

But she’s not, the same way the rest of them aren’t. The difference is she can articulate it, and it doesn’t take away from the time they don’t have.

“Are you okay?” Dick asks, and Rachel is glad he wants to tend to her. She'll let him.

“Fuck no,” Kory growls, but she gets up anyway. She’s on her feet and walking towards the door with Dick and a fervor Rachel admires from this side of the situation. Even without using her powers, Kory burns bright. Just because Kory won’t turn her pure emotion on them doesn’t mean she can’t. She remembers the scorch of Kory’s fiery blast during Rachel's demonstration in the barn. That wasn’t even a sliver of what’s she’s capable of, powers or none.

Rachel is reminded, not for the first time, Kory is the embodiment of _total badass._

Gar grabs Kory's boots and the five of them – Dick, Kory, Rachel, Gar, and Angela – find their way to the tunnels Rachel wishes she and Gar had known about. Daylight can't be far away.

\---

They’re almost out when they’re cornered by guards. Two at first. Rachel has her group, Angela, and half a mind to take them out herself. But the thought of showing Angela what she's capable of freezes her in place. And frankly, she doesn’t need this. Not the way Dick does.

Dick needs to ground himself, the way Angela needed to see Rachel’s birthmark. Needs something familiar. Something that transcends this place. Transcends even the time they’ve spent together. The promises he’s made her. So Rachel throws Dick a hard look because this is what he knows, and he needs to own it. This is one of the few times he can feel good about beating an increasingly large group of adults senseless. 

That, and she’s scared.

It isn't enough to walk off whatever drugs The Organization shot him up with; he needs something _his_ to bring him all the way back. 

There is nothing more his than protecting the rest of them.

She watches the entire time. Kory, more accustomed to Dick’s brutality than the rest of them, doesn’t need to shield her eyes either. Gar can’t bring himself to look, and Rachel doesn’t blame him. Angela jumps at every sickening thud of a landed blow.

Soon enough, there’s nearly a dozen unconscious men on the ground, a smell of sweat and something else, and dripping splashes of red on the ceiling, walls, and floor.

Rachel pauses for just a second after the fight clears, looking for a sign Dick is okay. He’s got that locked jaw, hunched figure, and fixed gaze she associates with his relentless drive. The look he thinks hides from her the fact he’s processing a lot in a short moment.

But he’s not hiding. Not the way he was before. He’s uncertain, there’s no question, but it’s out of recognition he chose to act, not that he lost control. Like he knows what to do next, but isn't sure he can.

It’s something. Dick has never really been okay, not since he was a boy. But maybe, in this moment, he knows it. And maybe, in this moment, he’ll let them be here for him.

When he speaks, he sounds practically irked they haven’t left yet. “Get out,” he groans, his voice ricocheting down the hall.

Rachel nods and leads the way. _No time._

But there will be. She’ll make sure of it.

\---

They make it outside and it doesn't feel like the nightmare's truly over. Fogginess clings to Rachel's lungs even as she finally breathes fresh air, the darkness this place has awoken in her following like shadows. But Rachel has Dick, Kory, Gar and Angela – _her mother_ – by her side. She almost can’t believe she's here with them. She definitely can’t believe it was worth it, despite it all. She tries not to let the complexity of her guilt swallow her whole.

There’s no shaking what happened to them tonight.

The explosion catches her off-guard. She wants to run up and hug Kory, or maybe collapse in relief, as the six-foot lioness of a woman emerges from the front doorway, strolling through the threshold like it isn’t spitting out flames. But Rachel knows there still isn’t time, knows there will be once they get to the safe house.

And thank God for that. She and Angela have thirteen years to make up for.

Rachel's watches Kory approach Dick, who stands off to one side of the yard, intently contemplating the flames before him. She can’t hear their quiet exchange from this far away. Gar hovers off her other side, staring at his shoes, thoughts his own.

The image of their little congregation prompts a sudden wave of emotion which threatens to overcome her. These people, her people, came all this way, endured all this, for her. Gar was right. She’s not alone; she has them. They want her. But if this is what she brings to their lives… she can't accept it. She can't let what happened to Melissa happen to them. She needs to take care of them. 

She has to focus on what she knows. She brought this horrendous experience on them, and she needs to make it right. She just doesn’t know what that means yet.

Her heart sinks when she realizes her healing abilities won't be enough. It's a deeper hurt than she can reach.

“Are you okay?” Angela asks, tugging at Rachel’s arm.

Rachel doesn’t want to answer. She doesn’t like the question.

“No,” she responds. The honesty burns in her throat like bile. She quietly looks over at her small collection of people, her _friends,_ once more; the corners of her mouth curve almost involuntarily in a small smile. “But we’re together.”

She turns to face her mother – _her mother!_ – fully. She grabs both her hands and smiles in earnest for the first time in what feels like days. 

“We’re together.”


End file.
